2010 Catchup and hello 2011

Welcome to 2011 my friends and followers!

It's been a little while since my last post, so I'll try to wrap up some of the things that have gone on in the tail end of 2010 and the trouble I shall be getting myself into come 2011 ;)

So let's get started, shall we?

When last I left you, I was getting ready to head over to Fantasy of Flight for their 15th Anniversary celebration.
The celebration was three days of aviation goodies, with Kermit flying fifteen aircraft over the three days. I went on the third day, where he flew the Avro Cadet, Fiesler Storch, North American P-51D Mustang, and Travel Air B-4000, the first and last of which I hadn't seen fly before. I also got to crawl in each of their cockpits as a perk of being an annual member ;)

The Avro Cadet banks overhead

Grumman Duck

Travel Air

inside the cockpit of the Storch

In the beginning of December, I hit the Tampa Bay International Auto Show hosted by Motor Trend, as I do every year.

Gorgeous day to drive some cars........or all of them. Which you know I eventually would.

I'm up next in the Camaro SS ;)
After spending a couple hours outside driving everything available, I headed inside to shot the cars on display.

Stingray Concept

Geek wet dream

The New Ford Focus. Every time I see this car, especially in this color, I think of Clarkson using it as an Amphibious lander in Top Gear!

I also managed to get some hobby work done in the latter part of the year.
You'll be glad to know that the Doolittle B-25B finally got decaled and flatcoated. Here she, and a few other new builds, are:

Some of my recent builds. Only the F-117A, F-15E, F/A-18E, F-14D and A-6E are pre this year.

The Doolittle B-25B Mitchell all done and the Junkers Ju 88A-4 representing Opa's bird from KG 30.

Erich Hartmann's Bf-109G-10

A good view of the Ju 88 I did to represent my Opa, Wolfgang Reidel's KG 30 mount. I unintentionally made the call letters spell out Abwehr, or German SpecOps. The WR was on purpose for Wolfgang Reidel. The AB I had extra letters of. ;)

In none me-centric news, but keeping it in the family, my little brother's novel 47 Echo
is to be published in just over a week. I guess that means I have to get the Stanley stuff published now :P

Job wise, the year has been a mess. I had the volunteer days at Star Wars Celebration V, then the two week tease at JP Morgan Chase back in November. Cannot TELL you how sick of wearing a suit to interviews i have become.


Finally, we can all quit looking for work. With Scott and Caroline at a job fair in Clearwater. That's right, I got a job. Started it the very last week of December, working Tech Support for AOL out at CGS in north Tampa. That's been keeping me pretty busy, actually.

I have also made a couple of new friends this year, both of whom, ironically, I met at Celebration V while working there back in August. Since then I have gotten to know both Lindsay and Carie better and am honored to call both of them friends. Linds is an amazing artist and geek in Orlando. Carie, though currently on IR, in addition to being hella cool and from the same area as my family, plays in the LFL for the Tampa Breeze.

LFL's Tampa Breeze Offense takes the field, and the league, by storm

I got introduced to the LFL while getting to know Carie Small, and went to my first game last month.
I'm heading to another game on this coming Thursday with Steve and Lindsay, to harass Carie and watch the Breeze take sole control of the LFL lead. The LFL is something I enjoy, but I'll mention more on that in my next blog, hopefully next weekend, when I think I'll devote a blog just to the sport, after i take some better shots this weekend ;)

In developing news, I may be working as an airborne photog at an upcoming airshow in March, so keep your eyes open for that one ;)

Lastly, I opened a Deviant Art account as well. feel free to pop by and harass me there too ;)

If Just For One Night

Superhero Stanley
If Just For One NightBy
Brian R. Kupfer

I was up to my usual lofty prowling on the rooftops of the city, just before dawn, when something in my peripheral vision caught my attention.
It seemed to be a trail of sparks in the night sky, losing altitude and heading to the north of the city. The sparks seemed to be just like what you would see coming from a malfunctioning bit of machinery, except for the fact that there WAS no machinery in sight and the sparks were moving across the sky all by themselves.
There was no juking, weaving, or other sharp maneuvering, but the little spark trail was definitely moving under some sort of control, occasionally climbing to avoid buildings as it continued to lose altitude gradually on its flight across my city.
I also seemed to be the only person that had noticed it, as I couldn’t see anyone else looking towards it.
Then again, there weren’t a hell of a lot of people dumb enough to be on top of these cold and windy rooftops in the tail end of December, either, so, it was hard to be sure.
I didn’t know what the hell it was, so, technically, I was seeing an Unidentified Flying Object, or UFO, in the epitome of the definition of the term.
Which means I was never going to hear the end of this from the crew.
In fact, since I was already close to the airport, and Joeda’s pad in a General Aviation hangar, maybe he would have an idea of what was going on.
Never hurt to check.

____________________________________________________________________________________

It took me fifteen minutes to get to the edge of the city’s downtown district, and therefore the end of my ability to hop from roof to roof with the help of my modified version of Kitten’s grapple, longer than usual because I had to carefully avoid the seemingly thousands of holiday lights strung along and between the buildings downtown.
If I had it bad, I could only imagine poor Spider-Man’s consternation at trying to swing through Manhattan during this time of the year.
Besides, my armor and clothing was probably a lot warmer than his red and blue one-piece!
Once at the edge of town, I rappelled down the building next to the parking garage where I had parked my green Bricklin before swinging over to the garage’s top floor.
The sun was already peeking over the eastern horizon and the sky lightening by the time I got into the gull-winged car and started the ignition.

From there, it was a short trip along a nicely twisty back access road over to the General Aviation side of the airport, where I headed to the sixth, and furthest, of the hangars on that side of the building.
You could see it from nearly half a mile away, what with all the festive lights and inflatable lawn decorations Joeda and Syn had put up over the last couple of weeks.
So much for Joeda’s original idea of a “hidden lair”. I thought.
Of course, looking around, the other five hangars were only marginally less enthusiastically lit up themselves.
Maybe the kid knew what he was about after all.
I pulled the SV-1 around towards the rear of Joeda’s hangar and parked it beside my “normal life” replacement for the Durango, a black GMC Terrain. Which was next to Joeda’s Honda Civic hatchback and Syn’s black Harley with the orange and pink flames on it.
Parked a little further off was a nondescript black Dodge Charger that was trying too hard to be unnoticeable, thereby standing out as Captain Dodge’s unmarked PD cruiser, and a newly-purchased BMW Z4 that belonged to Kitten.
Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.
And now I had that annoyingly cloying song from The Pirates of Penzance stuck in my head.
This early in the morning, all of them being here could only mean one thing.
The womenfolk were planning something, possibly to the detriment of Joeda and I, but more than likely a Christmas party.
Which, really, amounted to the same thing.
Walking past my Terrain, I shook my head upon noting it now had giant fuzzy antlers attached to the rear doors, and a big red nose on the grille. Obviously Kitten’s doing.
Still shaking my head, I entered the rear door of the hangar, noticing that the interior, if anything, had more lights and decorations strung around than the exterior.
The next thing I noticed was that there was Christmas music booming across the space from the front part of the converted building. Off to the right of the door, Joeda’s Buell is on a jack stand, half disassembled.
I wandered into Joeda’s office, only to find him at the front bay windows of it.
Walking up beside him, I can’t say I blamed him. The view was unreal.
Captain Dodge sat on one of the oversized sofas in the main living area, wrapping gifts on the coffee table in front of her, wearing her “nothing to see here, move along” gray business suit she wore when on duty, her black trench coat tossed over the back of the sofa.
Syn and Kitten are busy finishing up decorating the massive fifteen foot tall tree in the middle of the room.
In red “Santa’s Helper” outfits, complete with fur trim and those puffy-ball hats.
With Syn up on a folding ladder attaching the star atop the tree.
It was like a fetishist’s vision of a Norman Rockwell Christmas scene.
Except for “Die Hard” playing on the sixty-inch LCD HD TV on the wall, that is.
It had just gotten to the part where the elevator doors open and “Tony Vreski” is revealed in his grey sweatshirt wearing the words “Now I have a Machine Gun. Ho-Ho-Ho”.
I wondered how the hell he’d managed to convince them to do it.
And where my camera was.
With that thought, I looked around the office, knowing we had a stash of cameras for surveillance work, and grabbed out a Sony Alpha DSLR.
You would have snapped off a dozen photos, too.
After spending perhaps a little more time than was absolutely necessary watching the two festively clad women decorate the tree, I turned to Joeda and mentioned the flying spark trail.
After summing up what I had seen and fending off his suggestion to be on the History Channel’s “UFO Hunters”, I asked him if he had any ideas.
“You said whatever was shedding the sparks was descending towards the north of town?” Joeda asks.
“Yeah. Why, what are you thinking?”
“Could be old Klaus. He lives out that way.”
‘Klaus?” I asked.
“Yeah, Klaus Von Sankt, old hermit that’s got half a screw loose, spends most of the year locked up in his old farmhouse, no one ever sees him until December or so, when he starts tinkering around in the barn like a man possessed. Some kind of experiments with an old car or something, I’ve heard. No one’s ever seen it. Dunno why he would be tinkering with an old car, he’s sort of filthy rich. Brand new SLS AMG sitting out front, cherry red.”
“Nice wheels. About where does he live?” I asked.
In response, Joeda wanders over to one of the seven desktop computers he has running in the office. Pulling up Google Earth, Joeda zooms in on the city, then rolls his trackball north, centering on a farmhouse just past the city, and barely south of the Canadian border.
“Huh. That’s about where they were headed, all right. Coulda been a dark-painted aircraft and there is plenty of room to land anything shy of a 737 on that land.”
“You’re going to go take a look, aren’t you?” Joeda asks him.
“You know me too well.” I comment with another long-ish glance into the next room.
I must be nuts. I thought to myself as I headed back out into the sub-zero night, the Alpha still in my hand, visions of red-clad women dancing in my head.
______________________________________________________________________________________


Almost a full ten hours later, I pulled the Safety Green colored Bricklin to a halt in front of the metal cattle gate that stood open by the dirt road heading off towards the farmhouse.
Once I had left Joeda and the women, I had headed home, taken a shower and a nap after having spent all night on patrol.
I woke up, had my “breakfast” at almost a normal person’s dinner time, left a message with Kitten as to where I would be, since it was the night before Christmas Eve, after all, and headed out of town for Klaus Von Sankt’s place.
After deliberating for a moment, I turned down the dirt road and headed towards the barn I could see tucked amongst the trees at the edge of the property.
I could have called ahead, but Joeda had found no listing for Von Sankt, nor any evidence that the man had ever had a phone.
So it was time to do this the old fashioned way.
The house was nearly a half-mile from the barn, and the red Mercedes SLS AMG that Joeda had mentioned was nowhere to be seen.
I parked in what counted for the driveway, where I could see signs of a vehicle having recently been there, and angled the SV-1 with the nose pointed towards the entry road.
So I skulked around to the back door, peeking in the windows on the way, just to be sure no one was home.
Trust me, when dressed up in the Superhero uniform, it is impossible NOT to skulk.
Not seeing any movement in the white one-story dwelling, I headed in a jog across the open meadow between the house and the old barn.
Where it had once obviously looked like the stereotypical American barn, with red painted sides, white trim, hay door above the main doors, and black tiled gambrel roof, it had seen better days, and, indeed, was slouch backed in the middle of the roof. The sides were no better, the paint faded and peeling and the windows boarded over.
That having been said, the walls were still mostly straight and none of the boards in them were loose, plus the main doors seemed rather sturdy.
Maybe the place wasn’t kept up to “Better Homes and Gardens” standards, but neither was it exactly neglected.
In fact, I was willing to bet that the roof had been designed to look like it was falling in as camouflage.
I futilely checked the main doors, but knew in the back of my mind that they would be securely locked.
I was right.
So out came my miniaturized pneumatic grappling hook, which I fired through the hay door and seated before scaling the front of the barn.
Once in, I inched my way across the hayloft until I was able to reach the railing overlooking the barn floor below.
And I just stood there, looking.
Couldn’t believe my eyes.
Still can’t quite explain what I saw in that barn, without having you think I am completely nuts.
But here goes.
Sitting dead center in the middle of the barn’s floor was an ancient sled of northern European origin, from around the early 1800s, if I was any judge.
I was obviously well cared for, and stained a subtle dark cherry, with long steel runners extending at least twenty feet from six inches past the front of the livestock harness attachment on the front to almost a foot behind the rear of the well-preserved transport.
Set up much like a modern full size pickup truck, the sled had a leather-upholstered bench seat spanning the width of the sled in the front, with a wooden divider just behind the back of the bench seat.
The rest of the length of the winter vehicle was given over to payload, whatever may have been carried in it.
However well maintained this sled was, it was obviously not a museum piece, nor being restored to be such, as evidenced by the state-of-the-art components and attachment mounts scattered around beside it and in the process of being mounted to it.
I wanted to get down there and snoop around, I knew no one would believe me if I didn’t have SOME evidence, so I shot a few photos of the sled with the Sony Alpha.
A shelf had been added along the front of the driver’s area, molded in a plastic the same color of the sled’s original wood. Mounted to the shelf was a GPS unit and a set of modern aviation radios, with wiring contoured along the floor into the box the leather bench was mounted on.
Dropping to the barn’s floor, I noted a seventeen inch Viao laptop, IFF squawk box, transponder, and radio direction finder display as well.
Even more strangely, while looking into the front of the sled, I saw writing etched under the bench seat, which I had lifted up, that was grey-toned in age and seemed to have been burnt into the seat base when built.
It was in Old Dutch.
At about the time I noticed this, the main barn door opened silently, and a tall man, about my own height of six-four, rangy but strong looking, like an old oak, with a long grey-white beard and sparkling black eyes, stood there for a moment before running away from the barn and back towards the house.
In the flash of a moment I saw him, I barely registered he was wearing a red jacket and pants.
As I stood up and started to chase after him, my foot stepped on one of the livestock harnesses.
Which jingled, thanks to the small silver globe bells attached to it.
I sped up to catch the old man, who was surprisingly quick.
This had to be Klaus Von Sankt.
Thinking of the man’s name, and the sled I had just been inspecting, something clicked.
It wasn’t a sled at all.
It was a Sleigh.
Capital S and all.
Klaus Von Sankt.
Klaus of the Saint.
Saint Klaus.
Sinterklaas.
There was no way in hell.
Couldn’t be. Just a myth.
But I knew damned well there was only one way to find out.
Sprinting at full speed across the meadow, I could hear the growl of a dual overhead cam, 6.2 litre V8 as the SLS AMG came to life.
I could see the cherry-red gullwing reversing past my Bricklin and turning around to head back out of the farm’s property, and by the time I reached my ‘Look at me” green car, all I could see of the Mercedes Benz coupe was the taillights.
Great, I was about to be in a race with a person who possibly had mystic powers, and, on top of that, was in a thirty-five year newer car.
Both had V8s, 351ci for mine and 378 for his, but my car weighed about a hundred pounds LESS than the newer Mercedes.
Which meant, by rights, that he should leave me in the dust, since the posted 0-60 time for my car, when NEW in 1975, was 9.9 seconds.
The SLS was rated at 3.8 seconds for the same test.
I would just have to hope to keep him in sight.
Of course, I did have some experience at high-speed chases through this city.

It took only about twenty minutes to get into the outskirts of town, as there was enough traffic to let me keep sight of the red coupe, and it soon became apparent that Von Sankt was heading into the heart of the city, though that seemed to be the dumbest place to go, since his car would easily outstrip mine on the freeway, whereas the maze-like layout of streets and nighttime congestion in the city’s center would allow me to close the gap.
Then I started to notice the uniformity of dress of the people on the sidewalks.
A lot of red with white trim.
Of course.
SantaCon was this evening, as our city had the third latest one in the country, on the 23rd. Only Temecula, California and Boulder, Colorado had theirs later.
Everywhere else had had theirs at least a week ago.
I had to close the gap now or I would never find a man with a beard in a crowd of red-suited, fake bearded men and women.
Which is exactly what happened.
I passed the SLS parallel parked about two blocks from the heart of downtown, but Klaus was nowhere in sight.
Didn’t help that some of the female Santas were, er, slightly distracting. Especially this one brunette……but my plate was already full.
So, since I had lost the man himself, and I thought I knew what the problem was, I did what I do best in my Stanley guise.
I stuck my nose in.

___________________________________________________________________________________

“Joeda, without our help, he’s never going to get this thing working again. I know what’s wrong, and you’re about the only guy that can fix it in time. Meet me over at Klaus’ place as soon as you can get there.” I stated over the Bluetooth headset as I pulled the SV-1 around through the maze of one-way streets to end up heading back out to Von Sankt’s barn.
Joeda met me there, and was standing in the driveway of the house beside his little blue Civic.
It took us most of the night, but we had all the tech gear wired into that Sleigh by the time the sun rose, and were both happily ensconced in our own beds with no one the wiser before eight in the morning.
It was already Christmas Eve.
That night, around eight, we met up back at the hangar again, for our traditional Christmas dinner, since tomorrow we’d be with our genetic families.
Tonight was for the family we’d chosen.
Karen and the Kitten had spent the majority of the afternoon cooking, utilizing utensils in the hangar’s kitchen that Joeda hadn’t even known he had owned.
When I showed up just before eight, Dodge was pulling in right behind me, having just gotten off work at the Precinct.
Of course I teased her about the handcuffs. It HAS to be done.
And she threatened to use them, which didn’t help the situation any.
When Sarah and I entered the hangar, Karen and the Kitten were sitting on one of the sofas drinking wine and watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”, which was about five minutes from the end.
The cop headed for the kitchen area.
Joeda and Syn were nowhere in sight, but I could imagine what they were up two. Those two were like damned rabbits.
Yeah, so I’m a little jealous, but I have my own relationship issues to deal with, as evidenced by the two brunettes in front of me.
Things were still tetchy on that front, since, technically, Kitten and I had never quit dating, if that was the current euphemism, when Karen and I fell for each other.
In my defense, everyone had thought the Kitten was dead.
I tell you, I walked into that room with all the excitement of a man going to the oral surgeon.
Luckily, Dodge saved my bacon by tossing a cold brewski at me, which gave me something to put in my mouth besides my foot.
By the time the movie ended, I was finished with the first beer of the night, and the two boff monkeys had decided to make an appearance.
We may be dysfunctional, but we’re all we’ve got.
As we were all settling around the table (I took one end of the rectangle to avoid being trapped between the women in my life), I hate to say, but, outside there arose a clatter.
Sure enough, we rushed to the rear hangar door to find old Klaus Von Sankt standing there, his Sleigh nowhere in sight.
“I just wanted to stop by and say thanks to all, and leave you a gift.” The jolly old man stated.
He looks nothing like what people thinks he looks. He’s not at all fat, for one thing, and his face is more of a light walnut color, like a Dutchman that has spent many years in the sun, than rosy.
After having said his piece, he embraced each of us in turn, calling us all his special helpers, with a sideways glance at Joeda and I.
You should have seen those two the other night I thought, remembering Syn and Kitten decorating the tree.
‘Who says I didn’t?’ I heard without sound.
After embracing each of us in turn, ending with Dodge, he turned, walked ten paces, and simply disappeared.
I could swear I heard little bells and saw a movement overhead.
But the night was overcast, and I’m still not sure.
Either way, our night was filled with warmth and cheer, and Dodge’s on call phone did not go off that night.
All was peaceful in the city, for one night at least.
And I knew that this night, the Superhero Stanley would be not be needed on patrol.
And that itself was a minor miracle on Earth.


So, from the characters in my head, to the Characters I am blessed to have in my life, Happy Holidays.

A little Taste.....

Of things to come. First couple pages from the new "Superhero Stanley" story........

Superhero Stanley
Part the Seventh: Into the Black

By

Brian R. Kupfer

I had to get Karen out of there.
But I knew that with the goons and the vivacious little blonde along, I was going to have to get creative.
I grabbed Karen’s right bicep with my free left hand when the vivacious blonde and I passed her, clutching her tightly to my side and whispering into her ear “just follow my lead”, before the blonde in front of us had a chance to react.
I was taking a huge chance, basing everything on what first impression my thinking head was able to gather of the nymphet that was obviously supposed to be a distraction.
What can I say, she was good at her job.
Squeezing the blonde’s hand to get her attention, I stated, as nonchalantly as I was able to, “As long as we’re in for a good night, why not make it great? You’re into three-ways, right?”
I inclined my head towards Karen while I pulled her into step with us.
The little blonde looked Karen up and down quickly, then paused in mid-step for a heartbeat before taking a longer, more appreciative look, all while the three of us wove our way through the increasingly-packed crowd towards the door.
I almost held my breath waiting for her reply.
While I was turning blue in anticipation, the “Third Knut” band finished their sound check and the bassist, a five-ten man with longish sandy hair, a goatee and thin beard, thumped the mic twice before his band mates started up.
“This is our newest song, ‘Interpretive Dance’. Hope you like it. And 2, 3, 4…”
On four, the guitarist, a man maybe five-nine with black hair and a goatee, wearing Jedi robes, slammed into a frenetic beat, which the bassist, who was dressed in a multicolored serape with a huge sombrero on his head, thrummed a counterpoint to.
Behind them, their drummer, wearing a three-piece business suit and sunglasses, his longish wavy black hair done up to look like a 60s greaser, did a passable Animal imitation from the Muppet Show, and their keyboardist, the shortest of them, wearing a racing suit and glasses, made like Jim Carrey on acid with the percussion instrument.
Strangely, the frenetic discombobulation of the four instruments worked. I found my head bopping along to the music while we walked towards the door.
All four of the men leaned into their microphones and sang in chorus on the opening line and final exclamation of each stanza, the Jedi sang the first verse, the Mexi-Can’t the second.

“Our Love’s like Interpretive Dance,
No one understands it
But you gotta take a chance.
YEAH
Our Love’s like Interpretive Dance,
I dated this Girl once
She thought she was a Man
GO!”

On GO, the bassist launched into a rumbling solo, vibrating the walls of the little club while his three band mates took a break and flirted with members of the crowd.
After that, we were out the door and past the Mr. Clean-lookalike bouncer-cum-security guard, and I was left humming along to the band’s song, thinking their style was a strange combination of the Barenaked Ladies and Megadeth.
Upon leaving the Full Moon, the blonde wiggled and jiggled her way down the street towards a white Cadillac Escalade EXT parked around the corner from the club.
Flicking a glance over my shoulder, I noted the two buddy-boys were not-so-discreetly following us.
I looked back at the blonde just as she clicked a little key fob remote, and the lights on the ostentatious luxury SUV blinked once, and I could hear the “click” of the doors unlocking.
Not really surprisingly, since I had been expecting the goons to join us, the blonde slithered her lithe little body into the rear seat, motioning for Karen and I to follow her in.
The two goons approached and opened the front doors, the larger of the two getting into the driver’s seat, the smaller thug into the passenger side.
My brain was running in overdrive trying to figure a way out of this one, and my mouth was doing its own thing, without conscious control, like it so often does.
“Hey, hey, hey. Wait just a minute. Three can be fun, but five’s a bit more freaky than I wanna deal with tonight. Besides, muscleboy fruits aren’t quite my flavor.” I rambled on, sandwiched between the two women in the back seat, filling my voice with an outraged bravado I didn’t quite feel.
The goon in the driver’s seat extended a meaty paw back towards the blonde, who wordlessly slipped the Cadillac’s keys to him.
The man-gorilla, who had enough hair on the backs of his hands and forearms to make Robin Williams envious, turned and started up the re-badged and overpriced Chevrolet Avalanche.
Pulling the white SUV away from the curb, the muscle managed not to scrape the massive car into anything before pulling out into the street, pretty much a major accomplishment for most drivers here in the downtown area.
Somehow, the residents of this metropolis had never managed to perfect, or even come close, the art of parallel parking, or, depending upon whom you asked, even driving their vehicles.
Many people, yours truly included, believed that the DMV here had been founded and the first drivers’ tests given by, Helen Keller herself.
Though that is probably unfair to Helen Keller. I’m sure if allowed, even she could have driven better than most people in this city.
While thinking about the shoddy driving in this city, my overwrought brain suddenly came up with a half-cooked plan.
It was better than nothing, which was more than I had had a moment ago, and still better than a lot of the plans I had come with since deciding to become a hero.
Putting my best lecherous grin on my face, I leaned over Karen on my right, my right hand cupping her left breast, my mouth on hers in an arduous kiss.
There were two reasons for this.
One, I wanted the blonde watching my lips and right hand and Karen’s upper body, not my left nor our lower torsos, which were hidden by the way I was twisted towards Karen.
Two, I’d really wanted to do that since day one of meeting Karen.
Karen’s respondent kiss was surprised at first, but she soon got into it when she felt my left hand pull her seatbelt down and across her waist, slipping it into place, shielded by my body from the blonde’s view.
Coming up for air, I winked at Karen before looking over my shoulder at the blonde.
“Your turn.” I commented, my right hand reluctantly leaving Karen’s chest.
The lithe blonde licked her lips and leaned towards me in anticipation.
Making it look like I was turning all the way around to give her my full attention, I used my momentum to enhance a strong right hook into the passenger goon’s temple.
The man slammed to his right, spiderwebbing the passenger side window before slumping against the door, and I whipped my now smarting right hand across the driver while wrapping my left arm around his throat. I kept the lock in place by pulling back on my left elbow with my right hand.
Reflexively, the driver took both hands off the Caddy’s wheel to try and pry my arm from around his throat, and the big SUV drifted to the right, bouncing over the curb and heading for a building along the street.
I tightened my grip on the goon’s throat with my left arm while tensing my whole body against his chair and grabbing the steering wheel with my right hand and jerking it hard to the right.
The Escalade twisted to the right, the wheels on that side trying to come off the sidewalk when the blunt nose of the SUV slammed into the mirrored glass and steel beamed front of the skyscraper.
The Cadillac crunched into the building, caroming off one of the support beams and skidding into a spacious lobby for a few feet before slamming in to a thick, decorative marble column.
The jarring impact brought the big SUV to a sudden and noisy stop, the screech of bending metal and the tinkle of shattering glass nearly deafening.
When the Escalade EXT slammed to a halt, the rear wheels lifted off the lobby’s floor for a moment with the force of the impact.
At the same time, and thanks to the same momentum, the goon in the passenger’s seat rocketed through where the windshield had been, flying past the marble column and skidding on the floor like a limp rag.
The little blonde slapped into the side of the SUV and the back of the driver’s seat before slumping to the floor beside me.
The driver had nowhere to go, and I heard a snap when the momentum tried to fling him forward, and he suddenly stopped struggling against me.
Karen seemed to be ok, but she was probably going to have a nice welt from the seatbelt.
As for myself, I slammed into the rear of the driver’s seat, hard, and it was probably the only thing that kept me from being flung out of the vehicle like the man in the passenger’s seat had been.
Even so, I was sure I’d be sore for a week.
Somewhat shakily, I pulled myself off the floor of the Escalade and crawled across Karen’s lap, trying the door handle on her door.
It took some shoving, but I finally got her door open, and Karen and I spilled out onto the lobby floor.
While Karen took a moment to steady herself, I rummaged around in the SUV, finding duct tape, blankets, and a pair of shovels in the vehicle’s bed.
Apparently I wasn’t supposed to have been coming back from this ride, and, because I had involved her, neither was Karen.
Moving quickly, because I was sure that the Caddy plowing through the front of the building had set off alarms, I used the duct tape to truss up the lithe little blonde and the surviving goon, trussing them up like Han and Chewie in ‘Return of the Jedi”, minus the Ewoks and long poles, of course.
The driver wasn’t headed anywhere but the morgue.
After helping Karen off the floor, the two of us started to head out of the smashed building towards where I had parked the Durango earlier in the evening.
While we were headed out the door, a thought occurred to me, and I held up a finger to let Karen know to wait for me for a moment.
I jogged back into the trashed lobby and picked up the bound blonde, slinging her unconscious over my shoulder.
Then I ran back to Karen and we hightailed it for my Dodge.
After unlocking and opening the passenger door of the Durango for Karen, I opened the back door and tossed my blonde bundle across the back seat.
About the time I turned the Dodge’s ignition, a pair of Police cruisers roared past, lights flashing and sirens wailing, heading for the building where the destroyed SUV rested.
I waited for them to pass before pulling out, making a mental note to call Dodge and explain the situation later.
I headed out, following the directions Karen gave me to drop her off at her place, since she had been driven to the Full Moon by a friend.
Once she was safely back in her house, with the door securely locked, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Joeda, to see if he had made any progress with Jim’s laptop, and to tell him that we needed to meet up, and that he should bring Syn along.
We settled on his place in a little over 20 minutes.
I pulled over to the side of the road in a scarcely populated part of the city near Joeda’s place, changing from my civvies into my Stanley gear.
I also made a quick call to Sarah Dodge’s voicemail, as she was predictably too busy with the downtown situation to answer her phone.
When I pulled up to Joeda’s place, I grabbed the blonde out of the back, who was now our best bargaining chip.
Or so I thought.